Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to commercial beverage brewers and methods of making commercial beverage brewers, and more particularly, to beverage brewer housings made of sheet metal and methods of making same.
Discussion of the Prior Art
The drawings of this application relate solely to the construction of the brewer housing and do not shown the inner workings of the beverage brewers disclosed here. The invention does not involve any changes to the basic components that are generally present in any commercial coffee brewer or the like. If information concerning such incidental details is desired, then referenced should be made to one or more of U.S. patents of the present inventor including U.S. Pat. No. 5,000,082, entitled “Beverage Maker And Method Of Making Beverage”, issued Mar. 19, 1991; U.S. Pat. No. 5,331,885, entitled, “Semiautomatic Beverage Maker And Method”, issued Jul. 26, 1994; U.S. Pat. No. 5,943,944, issued Aug. 31, 1999 entitled, “Semiautomatic Beverage Maker and Method”; and U.S. Pat. No. 6,148,717, issued Nov. 21, 2000, entitled, “Beverage Maker with Intermittent Beverage Liquid Dispenser and apparatus and Method for Uniform Contact of Brew Ingredient with Brew Water” of the present inventor and the patents cited therein, all of which are incorporated herein by reference, for structural, mechanical and other details of the conventional components of coffee brewers and the like.
It is well known to make the housing of beverage makers such as commercial coffee brewers and tea brewers using stainless steel sheet metal. Subassemblies for the housing are often made with planer rectangular panels that are attached to each other at opposite sides to form four sided tubular side-wall subassemblies. The sidewall subassembly has four flat panels extending between four right angled corners with an open top and an open bottom. The four panels comprise a front side, a back side and a pair of parallel sides extending between the front and the back in spaced relationship.
It is also known to form the sidewall subassembly by bending three comers of a single work piece and then forming the fourth corner by welding together opposite ends of single sheet of metal. While these subassembly structures may be structurally adequate once fully assembled with a top closure and a bottom closure, because the thin walled sheet metal is flexible, there is often insufficient structural integrity to maintain the final shape of the open top and the bottom in a perfectly rectangular shape before attachment with the top closure and the bottom closure. Because of such distortion, the shape of the open top and the open bottom often do not perfectly match the shapes of precut sheet metal pieces that form closures for the open top and open bottom, in such case, smooth easy assembly of the rectangular shapes of the top and bottom closures with the mismatched open top and open bottom.
Generally, the rigidity may be improved by increasing the thickness of the work piece of the sidewall subassembly but this adds to the cost of materials and also to the weight of the finished housing assembly and the food equipment employing the heavier housing. It is known to mold the housing of a beverage brewer from plastic or the like but such non-metallic, plastic materials are not generally suitable for commercial application in which the housing must be generally impervious to commercial cleaning solvents, beverage stains, hot water, etc. and must be easily cleaned.